The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) believes pitching Modi is a shrewd strategy. “It ensured media recall and larger than life imagery built on his successful forays abroad”, a party worker Dhananjay said.

It also saved BJP the trouble of projecting a CM candidate. Having successfully converted the Bihar political discourse from inanities and nit-picking to force rivals to walk the talk, the BJP emphasis is now centred on Modi’s charisma versus chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Bihari asmita (Pride) and a development package, which it insists, ‘the Centre alone can deliver’.

It also argues a Centre-state symphony-government’s in Delhi and Patna simultaneously, to fast track Bihar.

That’s the gist of its aggressive campaign unleashed last month to win the ‘battle of Bihar’.

“It surely is a ‘make or break’ campaign for the BJP”, says Shivanand Tiwary, former Kumar aide and JD-U dissident, who had warned his party executive in January 2014, not to underplay the Modi impact.

Tthe BJP is determined it will not lose Bihar.

A loss could spell a Panipat as it would lose it political momentum nationally and encourage its rivals to gang up against it.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s strategy has been to draw a longer development line than Kumar.